


Everyone Knew Her as Nancy

by apple_pi



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-17
Updated: 2009-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:52:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apple_pi/pseuds/apple_pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t try to look all angry and hot at <i>me</i>, Colonel,” Rodney snapped. “Your ex-girlfriend is trying to kill me, you don’t get to be the pissed-off one."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Knew Her as Nancy

**Author's Note:**

> So bibliotech wrote [some really fabulous, funny SGA](http://bibliotech.livejournal.com/488737.html) about how much Atlantis really really loves John Sheppard (because everyone knows that Shep/city is the real OTP on SGA). And I wanted to write about what happens when OTPs are thwarted by pesky things like the fact that people can't date, well, _cities_. So the people want to date other people, and maybe the cities get kind of jealous. And here that is. Very silly. Takes place some unspecified time after The Return. Makes assumptions. Abuses innocent fruits and vegetables. Contains no grain of truth or claim of ownership. Title stolen from Rocky Raccoon, an insightful tale of the perils of jealousy.

“This is your fault,” Rodney said.

He was breathing hard, and his hair was wet, and he was wearing too-tight sweatpants and nothing else, and John was abruptly aware that god-only-knew-how-many people had seen Rodney burst into John's quarters at eight p.m. in that exact state.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” John said, sitting up. “And why are you wandering around Atlantis in sweatpants that are at least two sizes too small?” His eyes bugged out. “Those are _my_ sweatpants! Holy crap, Rodney, what are you _doing?_” He glared, tossing aside the reports he’d been looking over, and stood up.

“Don’t try to look all angry and hot at _me_, Colonel,” Rodney snapped. “Your ex-girlfriend is trying to kill me, you don’t get to be the pissed-off one in this, uh, thing.” Apparently he shared John’s odd (yet paralyzing) fear of the word “relationship,” yet another reason John was pretty sure this one would last. “Call off your bitch, for god’s sake!”

“You can’t just go jogging all over Atlantis wearing my _pants_, Rodney,” John hissed, pushing him toward the door. “Get out! Wait.” He stopped pushing; the door hushed open (Corporal Lighty glanced curiously in as she walked by, then looked away, face suddenly wooden, combat boots clunking on the floor as she sped up to get away before John could chase her down and kill her) and then the door slid closed again, John and Rodney still inside John’s room.

“Did you say my ex-girlfriend is trying to kill you?” John’s hands dropped.

“Hello, yes?” Rodney turned back around. “She just tried to kill me in the shower.”

“Chaya tried to kill you in the shower?” John said blankly.

Rodney looked as if he was resisting the urge to slap John’s face. (And wow, that was kinda hot. John filed that away for later.)

“Seriously? I can never have sex with you again if you’re this stupid,” Rodney said. “Atlantis. _Atlantis is trying to kill me_.”

“What?” John made a face. “Have you taken something? Are you high? Have you been exposed to something?” He leaned back slightly. “Are you contagious?”

“I was in the shower and suddenly the water went scalding,” Rodney said. “I was nearly boiled! It was awful! And the shower door was stuck and I had a hard time getting out!”

“Uh, Rodney...” John sighed. “Maybe a couple of people flushed the toilet at the same time. Maybe your shower door needs WD-40. Atlantis is not trying to kill you.”

“She’s totally jealous. My windows won’t open ever since we started... you know.”

“It weirds me out that you are, without a doubt, the most depraved person I have ever slept with, and you can’t say the word ‘fucking,’” John said. “Atlantis is not trying to kill you. Now make up an emergency that explains why you came running to my quarters after work and wearing my pants. Hurry up.”

“Are they yours, really?” Rodney said, looking down. “They felt kind of tight.”

“For god’s sake, Rodney, it’s a good thing you’re not wearing a cockring,” John said, waving his hands around. Oh, Christ, McKay _was_ contagious. He knew it. “Everyone would know what size it was.” And that was not at all hot. Not at all, not at all, not at _all_.

Except maybe it was, because Rodney’s eyes had gone a little glazed. “Do you have one?” he asked.

John sighed mentally and told himself to make sure that when Rodney left, he was wearing his own goddamn pants.

~*~

“It’s still happening!”

This time at least it was John’s office, and Rodney was fully dressed in his own clothes.

“Don’t tell me you managed to slam your fingers in a control panel,” John said. He swung his feet up onto the desk. He was pretty sure Elizabeth didn’t mind getting the forms back with his signature _and_ his bootprints.

“No.” Rodney thumped into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. “But don’t give her any ideas.” He glanced around nervously, then looked back at John. “My room is _freezing_,” he said. “It was a little too warm for about a week, but I didn’t mind that - I kind of liked it, actually, I _hated_ Siberia, that whole place should be left to the wolves - but now it’s cold.” He gave a pathetic - and over-dramatic - shiver, hunching slightly.

“Have you checked the environmental controls?” John asked patiently. “Or asked Reynolds or Puckett? If your room is too cold, theirs are probably weird, too. It’s not you, Rodney. Atlantis is not trying to kill you.”

“Reynolds and Puckett’s rooms are fine,” Rodney said. “And the controls for my room are fine - I’ve checked and re-checked. I even had _Zelenka_ check, and I had to clean up all your crap so I could let him in.” He shot John a poisonous look. “You left a Best of Seventies Country CD in my room.”

“It’s not like I made you listen to it,” John said.

“My albums shouldn’t even be _exposed_ to that kind of thing,” Rodney snapped. “What if it influenced them? What if they _bred?_”

“_Anyway_,” John said loudly.

“Anyway, Zelenka didn’t find anything either. And the control panel hadn’t been tampered with - there are no records that anyone’s accessed that part of the system at all. It’s Atlantis.”

“That’s a pretty lame assassination attempt,” John said. “Unless it’s ten below -” Rodney shook his head grudgingly - “then I don’t see what the point would be.”

“She’s trying to weaken my immune system,” Rodney said. “She wants me to catch an alien disease and die horribly so I’ll stop molesting her favorite altar boy.”

John stared.

“What?” Rodney said. “It’s really annoying! I hate being cold,” he muttered.

“Maybe I did it,” John said. “I do kinda like the way you get all nipple-y.”

“If you make a nippy weather joke I’ll nuke your favorite puddlejumper,” Rodney said.

“Oh, great,” John said. “Now the puddlejumpers are gonna be out to get you.”

~*~

Next it was his toilet, and Rodney had to vacate his quarters for three days while Sergeant Hathaway did old-fashioned plumbing repairs. Rodney ostensibly took up residence in the bachelor quarters two corridors away, but spent most of his time in John’s rooms, either bitching at him to get a bigger bed, for Chrissakes, or doing things to John that made running with Ronon the next day difficult but strangely enjoyable. John was kind of sad when Hathaway declared Rodney’s room habitable again.

After that it was the doors. No matter where Rodney went, the doors seems to close too hastily; he took to leaping through doorways and limping slightly from the pain of his barked heels. He avoided the transporters altogether, and arrived at most meetings late and panting heavily.

And after _that_ it was flowers: all the dead plants still tucked into odd alcoves suddenly burst into bloom. The botanists were in heaven; Rodney was in hell. Carson tried a dozen different antihistamines, but Rodney couldn’t give John a decent blowjob for a week, until Carson got the cocktail right and Rodney finally stopped sneezing.

“Do you really think there’s something going on?” John asked him one night.

They were in John’s quarters, celebrating the requisition of a brand-new double bed.

“Are you _insane?_” Rodney said, voice suddenly much too tense for a man who’d just come twice in two hours. “Of course there’s something going on. I don’t want to talk about it, though,” he added, and when John rolled his head to the side to look at him, Rodney’s mouth was tight, eyes fixed suspiciously on the ceiling.

“Maybe you should tell Zelenka what you suspect,” John suggested. “I mean, I never see this stuff happen, but -”

“That’s because you’re, well, you,” Rodney said, sounding curiously defeated. “Nobody wants to hurt you.”

“That thing you did with the cucumber kinda hurt,” John said.

Rodney smirked, just a little. “Yeah, well, you didn’t mind.”

“Nope.” John turned onto his side, facing Rodney. “Talk to Zelenka.”

“And tell him what?” Rodney finally looked at him. “‘Oh, by the way, Atlantis is trying to murder me. Why? Oh, because I’m doing unhygienic things involving fruit and lube to her beloved Sheppard.’”

“Maybe not that,” John agreed. “But something.”

“I’m sure it’ll stop sooner or later. Whenever it... she... finally gets the idea that you and I are -” Rodney’s mouth clamped shut.

John waited almost curiously for the rush of terror he’d usually feel at the idea of having a guy (or girl - hey, he was equal-opportunity) declare that they were serious. Nothing came, so finally he nodded, still looking at Rodney, whose eyes were round as marbles. “Yeah, I’m sure she’ll get the picture eventually.”

Rodney’s face went from white to pink pretty quickly, but he just nodded and looked back up at the ceiling. “So, uh. I should probably pander to your stupid military-industrial complex and its stupid prejudices and go shiver in my quarters until it’s time to get up,” he said after a while.

“Okay,” John said agreeably. He tilted sideways and sprawled half-over Rodney for a while; Rodney mumbled something and pushed one hand through his hair. John kind of hoped it wasn’t the hand that had been holding the cucumber.

“So, uh, back to the whole Atlantis-trying-to-kill-you thing,” John said, when Rodney still hadn’t got up to leave, and one of them was about to fall asleep again.

“Mmm? Oh. ...I tried talking to it. To her. Again,” Rodney said. “Didn’t seem to do any good. There was a dead fish in my sink the next day.”

“Gross,” John offered, because he didn’t want to say that he’d kind of thought Rodney had been making it all up, either because he wanted to sleep in John’s quarters, or because he wanted to break up with John all together - John hadn’t been able to decide which. “Maybe I should try the talking thing.” He propped himself up and looked at Rodney.

“You think?” Rodney was glaring at him, but when he got up and dressed to go back to his own room, he leaned over and kissed John, long and unexpectedly sweet. John fell cheerfully asleep for the forty minutes left until his alarm.

~*~

“Is a cucumber even a fruit?” John asked Rodney, setting his tray down across from him.

“Do I look like a botanist? Is there dirt under my fingernails? Do I appear to have ingested large amounts of brain-cell-killing plant matter in smoked or herbal form?” Rodney looked around. “Hey, Parrish,” he yelled. “Is a cucumber a fruit?” Parrish gave him a thumbs-up and went back to eating. “There you go.”

“Okay,” John said weakly. It was _so_ inappropriate to have a hard-on in the mess hall. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Rodney said, and gave him a transparent leer.

“_Jesus_, Rodney,” John said. “Quit it!”

“So have you, uh, you know.” Rodney started shoveling food in. “Talked to her?”

“No,” John said. “I started,” he added. “But I felt kind of silly, and then Elizabeth called me and I felt even sillier.”

Rodney stopped eating for a moment to glare.

“I will, I will,” John said, holding up his hands. He picked up his dinner roll. “Maybe after I shower, though. I want one last perfect shower.”

Rodney pointed his fork at John. “If she melts even one of my laptops, I will make you pay for a new one.”

“I’m good for it,” John said mildly.

“With orgasms,” Rodney hissed. “By which I mean, you won’t get any.”

“Neither will you,” John pointed out, _sotto voce_.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rodney whispered. “I’ll come all over your face for a week before I ask the kitchen for so much as a _baby carrot_.”

“That’s just mean,” John said, hurt.

Ronon and Teyla came and sat down and John inched away from Ronon because, ew, he still ate like a caveman. Being in proximity to that did deal neatly with John’s hard-on, though, so that was okay. He talked to Teyla and Ronon about Swiss Army knives (“They have forks and knives, right in them,” he said pointedly; Ronon grunted) until most of his food was gone.

“You have that talk,” Rodney said, standing up, tray in hand. He was squinting at John.

“I’ll see what I can do,” John said.

~*~

“How’d it go?” Rodney asked.

He was standing in John’s doorway, hands planted on his hips.

“Come on in,” John drawled, stepping back and rolling his eyes.

Rodney did, waiting for the door to hiss closed before he spoke again. “Did you do anything? My room felt a little warmer.”

“I did, indeed, have a talk.” John pulled Rodney’s t-shirt over his head. “I felt like an idiot.”

“That shouldn’t be a new feeling for you,” Rodney said. His hair was mussed, and he made a pleased sound when John ran his hand through it, settling it back down. “Did she - does she ever answer?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“No.” John unbuttoned and then unzipped Rodney’s pants. “I took my run and then talked while I was in the shower.”

“Did I mention that idiocy should be a familiar sensation for you?” Rodney asked, fingers busy at John’s belt. “What if she’d decided to kill you right then and there?”

“Shut up,” John said. “So the water went really cold, then really hot. But I kept going, and made it very clear that if Atlantis really likes me, she should really like you, too, because _I_ like you.” He pushed Rodney’s khakis down and wrapped his hand around the erection tenting his boxers. “After a while the water kind of evened out, so I figure we’ve come to an arrangement of sorts.” He tugged Rodney in for a kiss and then towed him backward toward the bed.

“Thank god,” Rodney said, his sigh partly relief and partly pleasure as he toppled onto John and the bed, holding himself up. “She could really do some damage if she stayed angry, you know.” He bent his head to John’s neck.

John let his chin tip back, head on the mattress, and carefully didn’t look at the cheerful green dot glowing in the upper corner of the room. She really could do some damage, and John didn’t see any problem with letting her in on the action with a thoughtfully placed camera or two, as long as it kept everyone happy.

“Yep,” he said, and then:

“Do you think they have regular-sized carrots in the kitchen?”

 

** THE END **


End file.
